Kirsty Mckenzie
Spain’s government has urged students to cancel celebratory trips to Mallorca after nearly 400 pupils returned from the party island and tested positive for COVID.
Health Ministers confirmed that 394 students who had visited Mallorca to celebrate the end of their exams had returned to mainland Spain and tested positive for the virus.
Thankfully none of the youngsters required hospitalisation but now the government is urging that no more students travel to Mallorca after six communities across Spain reported an outbreak amongst students returning from Mallorca.
Health officials confirmed this morning that there are 320 infected school pupils and over 2,000 people in quarantine in the Madrid region alone.
Students from 31 secondary schools in Madrid have been affected, according to these sources. The youths were staying at eight different hotels on the island, and took part in ‘a rather intense program of activities, including festivals’.
There have also been related cases in the regions of Valencia, Murcia, the Basque Country and Aragón. Authorities in Galicia have also said they have detected 50 infections linked to school trips to Mallorca.
According to the Balearic Epidemiology Service, huge groups of school leavers from across the country travelled to Mallorca between June 12 and 18 after finishing the Selectivity exams.
They added that all those who ‘have participated or are participating in the end-of-year trips to Mallorca and in the different activities around them’ will be treated as close contacts and asked to isolate.
Any students returning from Mallorca will have to carry out a test upon their return and will be forced to quarantine for 10 days at home, regardless of a negative test result.
In addition, the authorities are also considering ??the possibility of screening people who are currently still in Mallorca, despite the fact that the Balearic Islands have not reported cases associated with the outbreak.
Carolina Darias , Minister of Health, urged young people to be more responsible following the surge in cases.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, she asked that organised trips to the island be canceled because ‘the risk of transmission in the same environment where the cases are occurring is high.’
In addition, she said that the percentage of positive cases among people aged 15 to 29 has increased by 6% and warned that young people needed to take COVID-19 restrictions seriously.
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COVID-19 outbreak after Valencia students take end-of-year trip to Mallorca
